


Frostbite

by louciferish



Category: The Mighty Boosh RPF
Genre: Baby Boosh, Edinburgh, Fluff, M/M, Mischief, Naked Cuddling, Wrestling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29244921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louciferish/pseuds/louciferish
Summary: “You littleminx. There’s nothing wrong with the radiators at all, is there?”
Relationships: Julian Barratt/Noel Fielding
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	Frostbite

**Author's Note:**

> Must a fanfic have a plot? Is it not enough to merely string together a couple pleasant images?
> 
> Anyway, this started as something totally different and then wound its way back around. 
> 
> I plot Howince stories and plug away on them... then I randomly interrupt myself and write noelian instead.

Julian turns his key in the lock and meets no resistance, and he knows who must have beat him home before he ever opens the door. Of all the people with keys who come and go from the flat, there’s only one who can’t be bothered to lock the door behind him once he’s in.

 _What’s the point?_ he hears a voice ask blithely in his head. _I’m home. No one’s going to break in._ No matter how many times they have the conversation about safety, it doesn’t seem to stick. 

The front room is empty, the television dark and quiet. Julian’s keys land in the basket by the door with a miniature crash that sounds like hands slamming into a piano in the otherwise silent flat. He unbuttons his coat and drapes it over the back of a nearby chair, then pauses to brush the snow off the black wool. He’s wasting time and he knows it, waiting to see how long it takes for his house guest to get curious about the delay. 

Seconds tick by in his head, and his coat hasn’t been this free of lint since the day he bought it. It’s _freezing_ in the flat, nearly as cold as it is outside. Julian makes a mental note to bother someone about the radiators again as he listens carefully for the sound of stirring in the other room. Nothing. Prickles of worry dance over his skin. He knows it’s likely nothing at all, but the second it occurs to him something might be wrong, he feels like dog shit. If there were a problem and he’d waited like this, _dawdled_ for no reason fiddling with his coat, he’d never forgive himself.

He toes his shoes off and nudges them under the coffee table. There’s a hole in one sock, at the ball of his foot, and he can feel how icy the wood floors are as he pads over to his bedroom door. There’s no doubting it’s winter now, though spring will be just around the corner. Winter took its own time this year.

His fingers are quiet and slow on the handle, but the door hinge still squeaks a protest as Julian eases it open. He’s marked that noise a dozen times at least, making a mental note to oil it each time. He’ll do it again now. He still won’t fix the door. 

Thoughts of hinges and eerie silence have already left his mind as he peers through the opening. His huge, ancient bed still takes up most of the room, even now that he’s in a bigger place. Afternoon light pours through the only window, falling in a domino slant across his beige comforter, and curled up in the precise center of that ray of sunshine is Noel. 

He’s still wearing his green coat, though his pointy little silver boots are collapsed in a pile next to the door. He has his knees tucked all the way up to his chest, arms wrapped around them, and his face buried in the blanket. Dark hair spills down to his shoulders and obscures his features, but Julian hardly needs to see his flat, pointy nose to know it’s Noel. At this point, he’d pick Noel out of a crowd faster than he would his own mum. Old women tend to all look some variety of the same, much like babies. No one else is like Noel.

A slight twitch of one outstretched, ink-stained hand clues Julian in that his house guest is playing possum, and Julian’s lips quirk. Noel’s not as bad of an actor as he claims to be, but he’s never been much good at roles that require both _stillness_ and _quiet_. There’s too much restless enthusiasm stored up in his bones. As Julian waits, watching from the doorway, Noel shifts again, legs drawing up closer to his chest, face tilting up. It’s tempting to move closer, just for a good look at what is undoubtedly one eye squinted slightly open, unable to resist checking to see where Julian is hiding.

It reminds him of the early days, when they’d just started writing together. They’d be up all hours laughing, pressed side by side on the bed and drinking beer so slowly it was warm from their palms by the last dregs. Julian would murmur an excuse for a moment -- _Need to piss_ or _Fancy a bite?_ \-- and excuse himself from the bedroom. Returning, mere minutes later, he’d find Noel splayed on the bed, eyes squeezed shut, shaking with the effort of not laughing as he occasionally pretended to softly snore, like a child worried his parents are about to make him leave the party.

The act never fooled Julian then, and it doesn’t work now either, but Noel doesn’t need to know that. Julian likes to indulge him, and this particular indulgence is harmless. 

So Julian kneels on the bed, ignoring the old frame’s squeaks of protest, and crawls over slowly, as if he’s trying to be stealthy and quiet. Noel’s curled form remains unnaturally still, tense, until the moment Julian shuffles up behind him, tucks his knees behind Noel’s, his arm around his waist, his nose pressed into that chemically sweet hair.

Only then does Noel stir, his movements syrup slow as he presses back into Julian’s hold, and Julian’s grateful for his lips pressed to the back of Noel’s neck, where the other man won’t see his smile. The act has definitely improved in the past few years.

“Ju’yin?” Noel slurs, sleepy confused, as if it would be anyone else wrapped around him like a great Northern blanket. He must have actually drifted off at some point as he lay in wait. The creak of the bedroom door probably woke him.

It’s much warmer, holding on to Noel, not only from the body heat, but the sun spilling golden over them in this spot. Julian’s arm around his waist tightens. “I think you found the only warm spot in the whole flat, so you’ll have to share. It’s _freezing_ in here.”

Noel hums an affirmative before mumbling, “Like Edinburgh.”

Julian stiffens as the meaning of those words sinks in. “You little _minx_. There’s nothing wrong with the radiators at all, is there?” Noel doesn’t answer, but his shoulders shake. Julian draws back, just far enough to roll Noel onto his back to reveal his face, eyes crinkled with suppressed laughter. “I was all set to call the landlord, Fielding. Did you seriously turn off the bloody heat on the coldest day of the year?”

“I cracked a window too,” Noel confesses. Then his own face cracks, dissolving into giggles at Julian’s outraged expression. 

Noel lets out a squawk of protest when Julian pulls away and stands, but there’s no sympathy in him for this. It’s Noel’s own fault for acting up, mucking with Julian’s carefully-maintained environment. He storms back into the front room and scans the windows on the far wall until he finds the out of place one. It really is only up a crack, maybe a centimetre of gap for the wind to whistle through, but Julian can feel the thin strip of cold lash across him when he gets closer. 

“Bloody idiot,” he mutters to himself as he sets fingers to the ledge and snaps the window shut, then flips the latch to be sure there’s no easy repeat. The snow swirling outside is dry and pellet-like, nothing like the big fluffy flakes of Julian’s childhood that would stick to eyelashes and make for easy snowball fights, but the wind is crisp and the temperature still falling. Even with the window shut tight, he’s expecting it to be a two blanket night whether Noel stays to share body heat or not.

Julian crosses the room to the thermostat beside the kitchen. Now that he’s actually bothered to check it, he can see the switch set firmly into the “off” position. He starts to reach out to thumb it back on -- it will take a while for the system to reach a comfortable temperature again anyway -- but then hesitates, hand caught midair. Instead, he reaches up and paws his hair, frowning at the thermostat as he scrunches the curls.

 _Like Edinburgh,_ Noel said, and Julian hadn’t thought much about it beyond the fact that he was freezing in his own home for no reason, but… He does remember Edinburgh. 

-

It was the first real cold snap since they’d moved to Scotland, and the flat was so cold that Julian could see his own breath indoors. The worst day of the year yet, and the heat in the ancient building had decided it had enough overnight. Julian had crawled into bed, relatively warm and comfortable in pants and vest, and he’d woken at dawn with his teeth chattering.

When he’d shuffled out of his room swaddled in a blanket cocoon so tight his legs barely moved, he’d found Lee and Noel already swarmed around the radiator. Noel was holding a wrench. Good god, that was alarming.

“Give it here,” Julian had muttered, hip checking them both aside, but however he grunted and swore at the old ceramic monstrosity, it fought back just as fiercely. When he finally managed to twist the valve, it let out only a whisper of a hiss, like a garden snake’s ghost. 

The problem was beyond simply bleeding the radiators. The whole system needed repair, and that meant phoning the landlord, and that meant Lee locked in his bedroom yelling for half an hour, pacing so furiously that the floors in the living room creaked. 

With nothing left to beat or curse at to feel effective, Julian was forced to settle for making tea, then collapsing into a lump on the sofa, still wrapped in his duvet. The air was so icy, he barely wanted to venture his fingers out to get his mug. A second after he landed, Noel flopped beside him, throwing his slight weight down hard enough to make the couch springs groan. 

It was clear the cold woke him up too. His blonde hair was ragged and unwashed, standing up in the back from leftover products of the day before, and there was a pink tracing of lines on one cheek -- the imprint of a pillow. He looked too young and too small with his pink socks sticking out from the bottom of his blanket burrito, and Julian wasn’t surprised when Noel squirmed even closer, cautious fingers plucking at the edge of Julian’s blanket. 

“Can I--?” He didn’t need to finish the question. Julian was more than capable of finishing most of Noel’s sentences already, and besides that the man was an absolute master of _that_ look -- chin tilted down, eyes up to look bigger, shy. Julian knew it for the act it was, but that didn’t stop him from moving the blanket back, about to open it up and usher Noel inside before the cold air slapped into his skin and Julian remembered he wasn’t dressed. 

Nothing Noel hadn’t seen before, of course, but it still deserved a warning. “I’m in my pants,” he muttered, arm still outstretched, but he’d barely finished the sentence before Noel was pawing the duvet and squirming under.

“‘Sokay. I’m not.” It was far too early in the morning for Julian to process those words before Noel was pressed entirely against him, every inch of his scrawny body just warm, soft skin where he wedged himself under Julian’s arm and nestled into his side. 

Julian froze, torn between alarm and the desire to somehow get closer. Naked cuddling in the living room was a pretty high leap from sleeping fully clothed in the same bed, or even from the messy kisses they’d traded in alleys behind venues and bars, too drunk not to want it but still sober enough to worry they’d be caught. 

Muffled through the bedroom door, the volume of Lee’s shouting escalated dramatically, and that was distracting enough that Julian looked away, frowning over his shoulder at the noise. It felt as if he should intervene, but what could he add to the situation? It was little surprise that the management of a shitty flat rented to a group of broke not-really-comedians would be incompetent. 

Unfortunately, Noel took full advantage of Julian’s distracted acceptance of their situation by jamming icicles into Julian’s ribs. Julian jumped, trying to leap away from Noel’s freezing fingers, but he was blocked from fleeing by the arm of the sofa, and Noel only wormed closer.

“C’mon, Ju, you’re so toasty,” he whined. “I just want a bit of that for myself.”

“You’re not a man; you’re a frost monster.” Julian batted at the invading hands, but he couldn’t keep one back without losing track of the other. “I won’t let you leech away all my warmth.”

They struggled, dislodging the blankets enough that spikes of cold air snuck inside. Noel was faster, tricky, but Julian had the advantages of height and weight, and soon they were wrestling in earnest, Noel on his back against the sofa and Julian pressing over him, tight grip forcing Noel’s arms down at his sides. 

At an impasse, they stopped, staring at each other. Their panted breath was fogging, mingling to hang between them. The duvet had rolled back enough that Julian’s shoulders and Noel’s bare chest were both exposed to the chill. Julian’s gaze dropped to Noel’s lips, and he could see the other man trying not to shiver. 

Something hit the wall in the other bedroom. Then, the door creaked open. Julian and Noel both scrambled to sit up, squirming back into their original position with Noel under his arm, the duvet pulled up to their chins. 

Lee sighed heavily -- not unusual -- then flopped onto the couch on the other side of Noel. Unlike his degenerate roommates, he’d taken the time to pull on trousers and a sweater while in the other room, though he was still partially wrapped in a patchwork quilt.

“I did my best, but it’ll be at least a week before the landlord gets someone over here, I’d bet.” He scowled. “I told him we’d be fish sticks by then, but I don’t get the impression he much cares.” 

Julian had to clear his throat before speaking. “He’ll care when we don’t pay rent.”

“Nah,” Noel said. “They’ll roll our frozen corpses out the window and move a new batch of students in.”

With another sigh, Lee shrugged off his quilt and reached for the duvet. “May as well join the party. Shove over.” Not waiting for a response, he slipped under with Noel, then went stiff.

“Are you _naked_?” Lee jerked back, and the duvet dislodged just enough to expose a slip of Julian’s shoulder. “Are you _both naked_?”

They didn’t have time or breath to explain. Julian’s eyes met Noel’s, and then they were both doubled over, cackling, as a huffing Lee bundled up his blanket and fled from the room, a trail of curses sparkling in his wake.

-

Julian shakes his head, still debating silently with the thermostat. Doing anything in the Edinburgh flat had been miserable the rest of that week. Even as the weather outside had warmed a bit, the inside had clung to ice, and all of them had spent as much time out of the place as they could, bouncing around bars, coffee shops, and friends’ houses. Home brought only freezing air and pointed, sly looks from Lee that made the back of Julian’s neck itch.

But it hadn’t _all_ been bad. When Lee was out and they gave writing a go that week, they’d settled back into a more clothed version of the same position -- huddled under a single blanket with notebooks and pens, hot drinks instead of cold beers. Noel had insisted on tucking his toes into the bend of Julian’s knees each time, but aside from that it was pleasant, fun, warm.

They’d done good work, too, and that was what Julian had thought of in the years since, if he thought of that week at all. It was freezing, but they wrote some good jokes.

Clearly, Noel remembers it a bit differently. That isn't surprising. Noel’s memories of events often tend to be rosier than Julian’s.

Sighing, Julian scrubs his hand through his hair again, then turns away, leaving the thermostat untouched. When he gets back to the bedroom, he’s not surprised at all to find that Noel’s crept under the covers on the bed. The duvet is pulled up past his chin, nothing but a pair of eyes, a pointy nose, and a mop of dark hair to greet Julian from the pillow.

The green coat he was wearing is slumped over a chair in the corner, and Julian can see one leg of his black drainpipes dangling from underneath it. He folds his arms, trying to mimic a disapproving parent, but he can feel his own lip twitching against his will.

“If you wanted a cuddle, you could have just asked. You didn’t need to turn my whole flat into a walk-in freezer.”

“You’re the one who’s always going on about _authenticity_ ,” Noel points out, mischief sparkling in his eyes. 

Julian huffs and tries to make a big show of his reluctance, but his fingers are already at work undoing the buttons on his shirt. He strips down to vest and pants, stacking his clothes on the chair to intertwine with Noel’s. (The next time he tries to wear those trousers out of the house, he’ll find them dusted with glitter.) Then, he removes his underclothes too.

Noel sits up at that, duvet slipping down to offer a glimpse of his collarbone. “ _That’s_ not authentic.” His grin belies the complaint. 

“My apologies,” Julian says as he peels back the comforter and crawls into the bed, stretching out his arm so Noel can promptly wriggle closer. “But I’m not thirty and confused about what I want anymore. Is that a problem?”

“Nope.” Noel presses his grin, teeth and all, into Julian’s shoulder. “Not at all.” He drapes one leg over Julian’s, them jams his feet beneath one meaty thigh. His toes feel like icicles.


End file.
